Guidance Document Database

How to determine eligibility for a “Category 3 Benefit,” which is a benefit of a participant who retired, or could have retired, 3 years or more before the plan terminated.

Standard termination of plans and establishment of new plans that do not include past service credits will not cause PBGC to reject a proper notice of intent to terminate.

Discusses how the five-year phase-in rule impacts guarantee of certain recent benefit increases and that certain early retirement supplements are not guaranteed.

Addresses the procedure to follow when parties to a dispute over withdrawal liability do not agree on the selection of an arbitrator. PBGC adopted a rule addressing the issue. (See 29 CFR § 4221.4.)

Discusses the rules governing plan termination and notes that the employers may owe withdrawal liability.

Addresses whether incorporation of a sole proprietorship constitutes a withdrawal from a multiemployer pension plan where the successor corporation becomes party to the collective bargaining agreement and continues to contribute to the plan on behalf of its employees for the same operations for which contributions were previously contributed by the sole proprietor.

Licensed clinical laboratory bio-analyst is a professional individual for purposes of the Professional Service Employer plan exemption.

Termination is not subject to the spin-off/termination requirements of the implementation guidelines involving asset reversions since no assets will revert to the plan sponsor.

All affected parties may submit comments to PBGC on a proposed distress termination.

Embalmer and funeral director is not a professional individual for purposes of the Professional Service Employer plan exemption.

Welfare plans are not covered under Title IV.

Addresses the distribution of residual assets to an employer.

A restated plan document created an aggregate of single plans and not a single pension plan, with a valid allocation of assets among those separate plans.

Profit sharing plans are excluded from coverage under Title IV.

Addresses whether a multiemployer plan with only one remaining contributing employer continues to be a multiemployer plan.

A plan that in practice met the criteria for tax qualification for five years prior to its termination date was covered under Title IV at plan termination.

Addresses the bond / escrow requirements of section 4204 of ERISA which, if satisfied along with the other 4204 requirements, mean that a sale of assets by a contributing employer will not constitute a withdrawal from a multiemployer plan.

Plan meets the Governmental plan coverage exemption.

Addresses whether the construction industry exception to withdrawal applies where a contractor's CBA expires, its employees do not perform any more work for which the contractor was previously required to make contributions, but the contractor subcontracts for the performance of such work.

Original plan is a Title IV covered plan. Successor plan is also a Title IV covered plan. Successor plan does not qualify as an exempt plan under the Professional Service plan exemption even though successor plan has fewer than 25 employees.

Plan meets the Substantial Owner plan coverage exemption.

A plan maintained by a public agency or political subdivision which has been taken over from a private business is excluded from coverage.

Addresses whether a reciprocity agreement operates to impose on certain employers and defined contribution pension plans the minimum contribution requirements or the withdrawal liability provisions of the law.

Addresses whether a withdrawal liability overpayment must be refunded by a multiemployer plan sponsor to an employer where the plan sponsor subsequently discovers the underlying calculation error and the employer had failed to initiate the plan review and arbitration process.

Because benefit increases became effective through collective bargaining agreements (not specific action by the Board of Trustees), PBGC looks to the adoption and effective dates of those agreements to apply the five-year phase-in rule.